Some underground industries such as, but not limited to, underground mining and underground construction, utilize underground machines that operate in a tunnel environment. In such environments, the work site is typically a confined space with low visibility. Moreover, some operations require accurate positioning of the underground machine, but being in the underground tunnel environment, however, obstructs the underground machine from utilizing the above-ground Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite network.
Although GPS is generally ineffective for such underground environments, other efforts have been developed to facilitate the positioning of the underground machines. For example, a total station theodolite may be arranged at the underground worksite for determining position data from a prism located on the underground machine. The position data may then be utilized to assist in maneuvering the underground machine to a desired position. Often times, the total station theodolite is continuously monitoring and communicating with the prism to read the position data, which may unnecessarily shorten the battery life of the total station theodolite.
Chinese Patent No. CN104764434 (the '434 patent) discloses a total station that monitors three prisms in dynamic real-time to provide instantaneous coordinates of a machine fuselage. The coordinate data is analyzed to determine the spatial position of the center of the machine fuselage and compare with the design position.